Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM) is a family of network routing protocols that provide one-to-many and many-to-many distribution of data over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. PIM is considered protocol independent because PIM does not include a topology discovery mechanism. PIM may obtain routing information from other protocols such as Routing Information Protocol (RIP), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), and Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP). PIM may allow data to be transmitted and received across channels defined by (S, G) and/or (*, G) where S denotes the IP address of a transmission source, G denotes the IP addresses of a group of receivers, and * denotes the IP addresses for all transmission sources for the group of receivers. PIM does not currently offer quality of service (QoS) for multicast streams.